But to my mind it has always seemed as though the dark shadow
that rested on his domestic life for thirty years made him
infinitely tender to the grief and pain of others. Probably it came
as a shock to most lovers of Thackeray to read in a news item from
London only three or four years ago that the widow of Thackeray was
dead, at the great age of ninety years. She had outlived her famous
husband nearly a full half century, but of her we had heard nothing in
all this time. When a beautiful young Irish girl she was married to
the novelist, and she made him an ideal wife for a few years. Then her
mind gave way, and the remainder of her long career was spent within
the walls of a sanatorium--more lost to her loved ones than if she had
been buried in her grave. The knowledge of her existence, which was a
ghastly death in life, the fact that it prevented him from giving his
three young girls a real home, as well as barred him under the English
law from marrying again--all these things to Thackeray were an
ever-present pain, like acid on an open wound. It was this sorrow,
from which he could never escape that gave such exquisite tenderness
to his pathos; and it was this sorrow, acting on one of the most
sensitive natures, that often sharpened his satire and made it
merciless when directed against the shams and hypocrisies of life.
[Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY FROM A DRAWING BY
SAMUEL LAURENCE, ENGRAVED BY J.
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